Football made me a monster – Wenger

Wenger revealed that he sacrificed so much of his life for football and wondered if that made him selfish or a monster. He made these revelations in his new documentary, Arsene Wenger: Invincible.

“Football was everything. In life you have to find meaning and football had meaning for me,” he said.

“Today, when I look back I am a bit frightened of why it had such a big importance to me. Why did I sacrifice so much, and why did I live such a monastic life and not want to know anything else? Sometimes I worry about that – it was painful to look back and realise what a monster I was and how selfish I was. I lived my football with 100 per cent intensity.”.

The legendary manager also stated that he would sometimes throw up after losing a game because the pain would be too much to take.

“It hurt so much. I am a perfectionist. When you lose a game, you always know there was a way to win it. But the defeat remains with you forever. Women kill for love, men kill because they hate to lose,” Wenger said.

The ex-Arsenal manager disclosed that as a young manager he thought he would not survive in the job because of the enormous pressure and pain that comes with managing.

“Competition is real – it’s you or me. Pain hurts and the biggest pain is to lose a football game. I was physically sick when I lost. When I was a young manager, I thought I would not survive in the job because the tension is so high and the pain so big when you lose,” Wenger said in the documentary.

Wenger won three Premier League titles with Arsenal, famously leading the 2003/04 ‘Invincible’ squad to an undefeated league season. He stepped down as Arsenal’s manager in 2018 and now works as FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development.